Alley Katz (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 27) Read online

  I hurried into the office and began picking up the files and papers. As I gathered them off the floor, I suddenly realized that all the files were mine. Nothing of Louie’s was touched, which I guess was good in a way.

  So Tubby’s idiot breaks into our office and rifles through my files. He doesn’t find the paintings and apparently doesn’t find anything in the files. I pulled open the bottom drawer in my desk and opened the cigar box. My pistol in the sticky holster was still there. I checked the clip. It was still full and appeared untouched. I slipped the pistol into my belt and untucked my shirt to keep it hidden.

  I stacked the files and loose documents on my desk then set the paintings back against the wall. I did a quick check of the closet and put some coffee on. I pulled the file drawer open, and there was the answer to what Lyle had found. The rat trap had been sprung, no doubt when he reached into the drawer. Hopefully, he broke some fingers. I was on my knees, nailing the door trim back in place when Annette came up the staircase.

  “Good morning, Dev,” she called as she headed up the stairs. I hit a nail the final time then stood and watched her as she climbed up the stairs. She was dressed in black jeans, a red blouse, and leopard print loafers. She carried a black briefcase in her right hand. “Getting ready to nail the door closed?” she joked.

  “Actually, no. Someone broke into our office last night. They kicked the door open. Hey, thanks for coming down.”

  She quickened her pace, hurrying up the remaining steps. “What? Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make a joke about that. Is everything okay? What did they steal? Thank God you weren’t here. I mean, you weren’t, were you?”

  “No, it was sometime after midnight. We got a picture of the guy on the security cameras downstairs. You can see how he kicked in the door,” I said, pulling the door closed and pointing to the boot print next to the doorknob.

  “Oh dear, any idea what he was after?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to tell me. Come on in,” I said, opening the door and elaborately swinging my arm.

  Chapter 24

  “How about some coffee? I just put it on, and I can bring you up to date on what I know or at least suspect on this break-in.”

  “Yeah, okay, just black, please,” she said, setting her briefcase down on Louie’s picnic table. She glanced over at the paintings leaning against the wall and strolled toward them to get a closer look. “These are the works you want me to examine?”

  “Yeah, here,” I said, handing her a mug of coffee. “Grab a seat.”

  “Mmm-mmm, thanks,” she said and took a sip. She continued to look at the paintings. “That landscape is called ‘Planting Time.’ It’s part of the William Bellows collection. Theoretically, these three could be initial works done prior to the final piece. Same thing with the portrait, the original artist was John Capell, and the portraits are of Elinore "Nora" Preston, wife of Minnesota Governor John Albert Johnson. Both of these paintings hang in museums. The landscape was, I think, done around nineteen-ten. The portrait was done in nineteen-seven. The originals auctioned for around fifty thousand, but that was ten years ago, so they’d probably go for half again as much in today’s market.”

  “But these are forgeries, right?”

  “Yes, most likely, but just a quick assessment, whoever did them knew what they were doing. I mean, the work is good. Interesting that there’s no signature, but then if these were work-ups of the final piece, that would make sense.”

  “Grab a seat and let me tell you what I know and then if you wouldn’t mind taking a closer look at them.”

  “Oh, I’d be happy to examine them. To say the least, I’m intrigued.” She settled into the same chair Tubby Gustafson sat in yesterday. I sat in my desk chair and told her what I’d learned thus far on Eli Cummings. I describe the two-room dive he was living in, the portraits on the floor, and the landscapes hanging on nails. “Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Tubby Gustafson was here just yesterday afternoon.”

  “Gustafson? What in the world did he want?”

  “Remember? He has me looking for Eli Cummings. But he focused in on the paintings. I had them right where they are now. He literally lost his train of thought and wanted to know where I got the paintings.”

  “But if they were there against the wall, and he had someone break in here last night, why didn’t they take the paintings?”

  “Because the paintings weren’t here. I just had a funny feeling and put them all in the trunk of my car. Even this morning, when I saw the door had been kicked in, it didn’t immediately dawn on me that whoever broke in here had been looking for the paintings. But now it makes perfect sense.”

  Annette finished her coffee and set the mug on my desk. “You have any more coffee?”

  “Yeah, coming right up.” As I refilled her mug, she went over to Louie’s picnic table and opened her briefcase. She slipped on a pair of white latex gloves, laid a cloth over a portion of the picnic table, and arranged what looked like four glass squares on the cloth. She walked over, grabbed one of the portraits, and set it upside down on the glass squares.

  “Here’s your coffee,” I said.

  “Oh, just set it on the desk if you wouldn’t mind,” she replied, not looking at me but focused on the back of the painting. She pulled a magnifying glass from her briefcase and made an inspection of the wooden frame the canvas was attached to. She examined the tacks that held the canvas in place. After a few minutes, she stepped back, gave a quick smile, and sipped some coffee.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Well, just a quick look would suggest it could certainly fool the unsuspecting. The nails are handmade, and if we ran some tests, they’re probably in line with the dates of the original paintings. Something left in a jar or a drawer that you could use to attach the canvas, pretty standard for the day. The nails in each corner of the frame are most likely the same vintage, but the canvas is covering them up. An x-ray would verify that. The canvas looks to be aged. The thread count at first glance would seem to be correct. Again an x-ray would determine if there was another work beneath the portrait.

  “You’re making it sound like that may not be a fake.”

  “Isn’t that the whole purpose, Dev? Now there are uncountable methods to make this appear legitimate. The canvas could be blank canvas from back in the first half of the last century that Cummings somehow acquired. It could be a newer canvas that he soaked in tea to make it appear aged. Honestly, he could have hung it out on a clothesline for a couple of months or set it under high intensity, incandescent lights. Just about anything is possible. At first glance, the wood on the frame appears to be aged, but again anything is possible. I’d like to look at all of these in my laboratory. Would you mind if I took them back there for a more complete examination?”

  “No, not at all. As a matter of fact, after last night, that might be a pretty good idea.”

  “Let me take a look at one of those landscapes,” she said. She carefully picked up the portrait she’d been examining and placed it next to the others then stepped back and examined the landscapes. Once she made a decision on which landscape to examine, she set it upside down on the glass blocks and went through the same process only much quicker. She turned the landscape right side up and stepped back, looking at it from a number of different angles.

  She pulled some device that looked like a cellphone from her briefcase and turned it on then ran a light over a corner section of the painting. “Hmmm, not a hundred percent sure, but I think there might be another painting underneath this landscape. I’ll know for sure when I get it back to the lab.”

  She set the scanner back in her briefcase and pulled out a thick white plastic. She promptly unfolded the thing, and it turned out to be a plastic bag, which she carefully slid the landscape painting into.

  She pulled out five more of the folded plastic bags.

  “You want me to give you a hand?” I asked, getting out of my chair.

  “No o
ffense, Dev. But I’d prefer if you didn’t. Let me just bag these up, and we can place them in my car.”

  “Fine with me,” I said, settled back in my chair, and watched over the next five minutes as she bagged each one of the paintings. When she was finished, she said, “Okay, you can help me carry these out to the car. We’ll be taking them one at a time.”

  “I just stacked them one on top of another and carried them up here this morning. I mean, they spent the night in the trunk of my car and were banging off one another while I was driving.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re going to carry them carefully one at a time. Think of it this way, Dev. If these are originals, and I haven’t determined they aren’t, you’re looking at maybe a quarter million, maybe even half a million dollars. Be a shame to ruin that because you wanted to skip a couple of trips up and down the stairs.”

  “Good point. I didn’t think of it that way. Any special way to carry them?”

  “Yes, don’t grab them. Place the panting between the palms of your hands. Carry it with the back of the canvas facing you.”

  “Do I have to hold my breath or anything?”

  “Ha-ha-ha, you’re so not funny. Come on. Let’s go.”

  She took her car keys, pointed them at the window, and clicked on the fob. The lights on her car flashed. I followed her down the stairs and across the street to her car, a burgundy Chevy Suburban. The rear door was unlocked, and she held the painting in one hand and raised the door. In the back of the car was a rack with sponge covered spaces to slide the paintings into.

  Once she slid her painting in, she turned toward me and said, “Let me set this in there.” She took the painting from me, carefully slid it into the rack, and we headed back into the building, repeating the process two more times. We had just finished with the last two paintings, and she’d locked the Suburban when a faded orange Ford Fiesta groaned past us and pulled to the curb.

  “Oh, perfect timing now that the work is done,” I said.

  Louie climbed out of his car a moment later and waved. “You two coming or going?”

  “Just finished putting a half-million bucks worth of artwork into Annette’s car.”

  Based on the look he gave us, he wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I’m taking them to the lab for an examination. We’ll see if they’re originals,” Annette said.

  Louie nodded and said, “Are you leaving now?”

  “I could use a couple of minutes of meaningful conversation after what I’ve had to put up with over the past hour,” she said, looking at me.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Louie said, and we headed back up to the office.

  Louie noticed the repair job on the door frame as he got to the top of the stairs. “What the hell happened here?”

  I went on to give him the details over a cup of coffee, finishing up with the two images of Lyle on the stairs.

  “Whoa, not a very happy looking guy,” Louie said and handed the pictures to Annette. She seemed to shiver when she glanced at them and quickly slid them back across the desk to me.

  “Yeah, I’ll be taking it up with Tubby later today.”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I think I’m going to tell him that someone stole the paintings from me and all the information I had on Eli Cummings.”

  “But if this Lyle character was here and couldn’t find the paintings…”

  “Well, that just means some jerk beat him to it. Either that or maybe Tubby will think Lyle’s holding back on him. They can search here and my place for all I care. They won’t find anything.”

  “Good luck with that. Let me know when you talk with Tubby. It may be a good time to work from home,” Louie said.

  “It’ll be later today.”

  “Gee, Tubby Gustafson, and I thought I worked in a crazy world with art forgeries,” Annette said.

  “Hey, once again, Annette. Thanks for all you’ve done so far,” I said.

  “You’re welcome, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m more than a little anxious to start in on a closer examination. I’ll keep you posted. I’m maybe eighty-five percent sure they’re forgeries, but very good forgeries. If I can prove one, the rest will fall into place. Just now, my thought is either Eli Cummings, the artist, had six people lined up to purchase them, or he was going to offer them first come, first serve to maybe a dozen folks.”

  “But wouldn’t word get out that some guy purchased the painting and the other two people who purchased the same painting would tell him that his was fake?”

  “They may have purchased thinking it was an original. The seller tells them, if word gets out, the painting could be confiscated and returned to the rightful owner, maybe a private party or a museum. They’d keep their mouth shut in order to keep the painting. Wouldn’t be the first time that ruse worked. Okay, I’m out of here, fellas. Dev, thanks again.”

  “Thank you, Annette. Keep me posted,” I called as she headed out the door. I watched out the window as she crossed the street and climbed into her car. “Louie, thanks for putting me in touch with her. She’s a really nice lady.”

  “Yeah, she is. Aren’t you still involved with Glad Ass?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t get her to answer any of my phone calls. Just because I was twenty minutes late going to her house for dinner.”

  “I’m sure that poor woman has a lot more to complain about. That might be escape music you hear playing in the back of your head.”

  “Yeah, I’m starting to think that way. Hey, I should head home and check in on Taylor. See if he’s up yet.”

  “Funny, sounds like it might be payback time for all the stuff you put your folks through.”

  “No, he’s way nicer and a lot smarter than I ever was. I’ll see you Monday. What’s your schedule?”

  “I’ll be here all day. I don’t have a court appearance until Tuesday.”

  “Well, enjoy your day and don’t forget to lock up when you leave.”

  “You think it’s gonna make a difference?”

  “Probably not. I think I might call a guy and have a new doorframe and door installed. God forbid we’d ever have a time when there was something important in here.”

  “See you Monday,” Louie said as I headed out the door carrying the two images of Lyle on the staircase. I closed the door behind me and got the distinct impression, if you knocked hard enough, the door would swing open, even if it was supposed to be locked.

  Chapter 25

  I drove home, let myself in the front door, and walked into the kitchen. Surprisingly, it was clean. The backdoor was locked, and Morton wasn’t pawing at the door. I walked out to the front room and called, “Taylor?”

  “Yeah, Dev, I’m up here.”

  As I climbed the stairs, Morton peeked around the corner.

  “So much for barking when someone comes into the house, Morton,” I said and gave him a rub behind the ears.

  Morton headed back into the guest room and curled up on the floor next to the desk. Taylor was seated at the desk, working with the colored pencils Dennis had given him. He was drawing on a page from the tablet. A couple of pages sat off to the side with a half-dozen colored images arranged on the top sheet. The images looked pretty good, two different snakes, three butterflies, a flag with fireworks. One of the images looked like a portrait of Morton. At the moment, Taylor appeared to be working on an image that looked like a compass.

  “Wow, you cranked these out already?”

  “Yeah, I was up until about two last night. Morton woke me this morning, and I let him out.”

  “Did you feed him?”

  “Yeah, and then we went for a long walk. He led me through the neighborhood, and we stopped at all his favorite haunts.”

  “Trees and fire hydrants?”

  “You got it. How’d your meeting go?”

  “Oh, fine,” I said, not going into any detail on the break-in. “A nice woman I was put in touch with is going to help me with something I
’m working on. You interested in breaking for lunch?”

  “To tell you the truth, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep working. I’m kind of on a roll.”

  “Not a problem. Can I make a sandwich and bring it up to you?”

  “Oh, man, that would be great.”

  “Okay. You keep working.”

  “Thanks, Dev,” he called as I headed back downstairs.

  I grilled a couple of Swiss cheese and ham sandwiches and took one up to Taylor. The compass image now had a clock with Roman numerals behind it and what looked like a black crow flying above. I set the grilled ham and cheese on top of the chest of drawers out of Morton’s reach.

  “Wow, that image is coming along nicely.”

  “Oh, thanks, you like it?”

  “I like all of them. They look great. You’ve got some real talent.”

  “Thanks. I guess it runs in the family. I want to crank out a bunch of images for Dennis. You think you could give me a ride back down to Inkredible sometime on Monday?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. Let me know when you’re finished, and I’ll give him a call and set up an appointment.”

  That brought a smile to his face, and he said, “Thanks, Dev. And thanks for helping me. I didn’t know where I was going to go.”

  “It’s been my pleasure, Taylor, and I mean that. When you feel up to it, you can tell me about you. You’re a good guy.”

  “Thanks,” he said and went back to drawing.

  I headed back down to the kitchen and attacked my sandwich. Once I finished, I washed the pan and set the plate in the dishwasher. I grabbed my keys and headed to the front door.

  “Hey, Taylor. I’m heading out to another meeting. I’ll be back sometime later this afternoon.”

  “Okay, good luck,” he called back.

  I climbed in the car and headed to Tubby Gustafson’s. It didn’t seem to make any sense to call and ask for an appointment. He’d just tell me how stupid I was, then he’d look to the sky, shake his head and ask, ‘Why do I bother?’ It would be interesting to see what he said when I showed him the two images of Lyle from Bud Friehoff’s security cameras. On the drive over, I worked on formulating my story.